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The strange ruler of North Korea reminds me of the wicked decadent Thubla Mleen in “The Hashish Man,” by Lord Dunsany: a tyrannical, insane man-child with a chilling aura of innocent evil. Enough eldritch adjectives in there? Or, come to think of it, something out of Lovecraft.

One of my teachers who served in World War Two told me that CATCH-22 and THENAKEDANDTHEDEAD were very realistic portrayals of the insanity of war. Judge for yourself..And unfortunately the “National Lampoon” article on-line has no illustrations. Too bad, they added to the humor. I have a clipping of the article somewhere in a lower stratum of paper memory sediment.

Odd, how our perceptions of good and evil have shifted from the realm of the supernatural into that of the worldly and political. Before science fiction provided rational explanations for mysteries, and modern fantasy writing provided irrational explanations for fairy tales, Dunsany, Lovecraft, and the last of the ghost story writers portrayed a reality vastly beyond our perceptions that didn’t care unless people stumbled into it. They attempted an explanation of metaphysics in physical terms..And now, metaphysics are being discarded. Now, our evils have names and nationalities, and death usually makes an end of them. But is that all there is? Stephen King and Harlan Ellison, Clive Barker and George R.R. Martin continue the metaphysical traditions in a modern tone..So at what point do the cries of our miserably murdered reach the realms of some elder gods and call down their vengeance or bring them to feasting?.Bu-wha-hahaha. Not sure that all means anything, but it gave me a slight chill.